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Alabama Governor's Race Tests Strength of Christian Conservatives

Even his campaign advisers are telling Gov. Fob James Jr. of Alabama to change the subject. But when it comes to his obsessive crusade to reconcile church and state, the Governor has maintained the relentless tenacity he once showed as a hunkered-down halfback for the Auburn University Tigers.

His defiant stands in defense of religious expression in schools and courtrooms, including threats to call out the National Guard and defy the United States Supreme Court, have earned the Governor a national reputation for zealotry -- and some serious opposition in the Republican primary for governor on June 2.

The campaign has exposed deep fault lines here in the heart of the Republican South. On one side are many of the Christian conservatives who have supplied the party with much of its energy and voting strength in recent years. On the other are many in the state's image-conscious business community, who fear that Mr. James is driving away investment.

''It's become a race about a set of issues that if rejected in a Republican primary will be a major setback to the pro-family movement across America,'' said Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition and a consultant for Mr. James. ''I think the pro-faith community is sophisticated enough to understand that.''

Mr. James's opponents, who share his support for returning prayer to the public schools, counter that the race is not about beliefs. Instead, they say, it is about tactics, and whether the state can afford another governor known primarily for tilting at the Federal courts.

Although Mr. James, 63, is favored in the five-way race, many political analysts assume he will fail to win a majority in the primary and will be forced into a runoff on June 30. His most likely opponent is Winton Blount 3d, 54, a wealthy Montgomery businessman and party leader who has accused Mr. James of ''playing to the worst instincts'' of this notoriously populist state.

In the 1960's, one of Mr. James's predecessors, George C. Wallace, achieved legendary status in Alabama with his populist, court-bashing defense of segregation. Now, Mr. James has adopted a similar approach, with religion replacing race as the focus of his appeal.

Mr. James's stands on religion seem to be heartfelt, say those who know him best. But he has also chosen to advertise his views with stump speeches and legal briefs, making school prayer as prominent a feature of his re-election strategy as are his pledges to improve schools and hold down taxes.

In an effort to energize evangelicals, some of Mr. James's strategists have portrayed the race as a referendum on a distinct brand of social conservatism.

But Mr. James's aides also recognize that the campaign has revealed fissures within the conservative Christian movement between those who admire Mr. James's resolve and those who fear that his showmanship may undermine their cause. They have kept the prayer issue out of his television advertisements, preferring instead to aim their appeals to evangelicals through telephone calls and direct mail. And they have encouraged Mr. James to focus his remarks more on education, taxes, jobs and crime.

During the last 15 months, Mr. James has waged a guerrilla war against the courts over long-held interpretations of the First Amendment's establishment clause. The United States Supreme Court has consistently ruled in school prayer cases that the clause prohibits government from favoring religion over nonreligion. Mr. James has asserted that the courts have exceeded their authority, misread the Constitution and suppressed religious freedom.

In February 1997, he announced that he would call out the National Guard if necessary to defend the right of Judge Roy Moore of Etowah County Circuit Court to display the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. Another state court judge ruled that Mr. Moore must remove the wooden tablet, but the decision was overturned by the state Supreme Court on technical grounds.

Last June, Mr. James wrote a 34-page letter to Judge Ira DeMent of Federal District Court urging him to dismiss a challenge to a 1993 Alabama statute that permitted non-sectarian, nonproselytizing, student-initiated voluntary prayer in public schools. The letter essentially argued that the Bill of Rights does not apply to the states.

''We will have no justice in our courts or integrity in our government without the blessing of God upon us,'' Mr. James wrote.

Judge DeMent rejected the Governor's request, and later ruled that the school prayer statute was unconstitutional. When the judge issued an injunction last November explaining what forms of religious expression were allowed and proscribed in the schools, Mr. James vowed to ''resist Judge DeMent's order by every legal and political means with every ounce of strength I possess.''

This month, Mr. James petitioned the United States Supreme Court to overturn Judge DeMent's ruling, with a brief that encouraged defiance of the high court.

''In the absence of constitutional limitations, other constitutional officials throughout government owe no 'deference' to the decisions of this Court,'' Mr. James argued in the brief, which was written by his son, Forrest H. James 3d.

The Alabama Attorney General, Bill Pryor, a Republican, quickly distanced himself from Mr. James, saying the Governor did not speak for the state. Mr. Pryor, who was appointed by Mr. James to fill an unexpired term, has filed a separate appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. That appeal accepts the unconstitutionality of school prayer, but uses free speech grounds to challenge some of Judge DeMent's restrictions.

In addition to Mr. Blount, who finished third in the 1994 Republican primary for governor, Mr. James's other opponents in this year's primary are former Gov. Guy Hunt, 64, who was recently pardoned on a state ethics conviction and is running for the office he was forced to resign in 1993; Lewis Leslie McAllister Jr., 65, a Tuscaloosa manufacturer and local party leader, and Phillip W. Williams, 58, a former state finance director under Mr. James.

The most recent public poll, which was conducted April 27-30 for Southern Opinion Research, showed Mr. Blount (pronounced blunt) moving into contention with Mr. James. Among those who said they were likely to vote in the Republican primary, Mr. James was supported by about 39 percent, Mr. Blount by 30 percent, Mr. Hunt by 14 percent, Mr. McAllister by 9 percent and Mr. Williams by 2 percent. Seven percent said they were undecided. The margin of error was plus or minus five percentage points.

The Republican nominee, presumably with a depleted treasury, will probably face Lieut. Gov. Don Siegelman, a Democrat, in the general election. Mr. Siegelman is an experienced candidate who had raised $3.9 million as of April 15. With little competition in the primary, he has managed to save nearly all of it.

Support for Mr. James, who made a fortune manufacturing plastic-coated barbells before beginning his political career, is particularly anemic in Alabama's business community. Those Republicans blame Mr. James for failing to win legislative support for tort reform, for exacerbating the perception of the state as a backwater and for devoting more energy to religious issues than to economic development.

The Governor won a big victory last fall by bringing a Boeing rocket booster plant and 3,000 jobs to the city of Decatur with more than $140 million in state incentives. But it may have come too late to restore his reputation in business circles.

Mr. Blount, whose father was Postmaster General in the Nixon Administration, said the state was ''thirsting to join the other states marching proudly into the 21st century.'' And while he emphasized that he, too, supported prayer in the schools, he said he would respect the rule of law and would not be ''out running ragged on some strategy that doesn't make any sense.''

After beginning their television advertising campaign, Mr. James's aides maintained that they had stopped Mr. Blount's momentum. But Mr. Blount has received endorsements in recent weeks from the leading newspapers in the state's four largest cities. And he has won the endorsement of the Coalition of Christians for Family Values, a group of evangelicals led by a Montgomery minister, Mickey A. Kirkland, who ran in the Republican primary for governor in 1994.

Mr. Kirkland said Mr. James had alienated many conservative Christians by turning the school prayer debate into a sideshow.

''I think people of faith see the sensationalizing of issues for political gain, and we despise that, detest that,'' Mr. Kirkland said.

He said Mr. James also lost support last month when a television station's microphone captured him cursing while signing a bill requiring silent reflection at the start of each school day. The Governor later apologized, but Mr. Kirkland said some evangelicals saw hypocrisy.

Other conservative Christian groups are firmly on Mr. James's side, and Mr. Reed expressed confidence that a heavy turnout of evangelicals would insure victory for the Governor. Robert J. Russell, chairman of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, which does not endorse candidates, predicted that Mr. James would win ''tremendous support from the Christian right'' because of his support for prayer in the schools and the Ten Commandments and his opposition to abortion.